Stilton: The Once And Future King Of Cheese

A legendary blue cheese, wrapped in a mystique as thick as its golden crust, stilton has a pedigree as jealously guarded by English cheesemakers as parmigiano reggiano is protected by its Italian counterparts.

Made exclusively by seven dairies in the misty, central English counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, Stilton is unique. Of the nine traditional hard English cheeses, stilton is the only one that is not pressed during the manufacturing process, the only one with a registered trademark and the only one that its devotees dare to call the ``King of English Cheese.``

``It`s a royal cheese because it`s associated with high eating, which is essentially at Christmas,`` says Jim Wight, chef at the Bell Inn in Stilton.

``This is a cheese with a lineage--and that makes a difference.``

Stilton`s lineage is long, romantic and curiously bound up with that of the Bell Inn.

Over 300 years old, stilton first rated literary mention in Daniel Defoe`s 1727 work, ``Travels Through England and Wales.`` The writer noted that he passed through ``Stilton, a town famous for cheese.``

``In 1720, Daniel Defoe sat in this inn and wrote about stilton cheese,`` Wight says proudly. Just how much writing Defoe did or didn`t do at the Bell Inn is debatable, but that the cheese he wrote about came from the Bell is virtually certain.

The 600-year-old Bell Inn stands on what was once called the Great North Road, a thoroughfare dating to Roman times and presently called the A1. For centuries, the inn was a stopping place for travellers, including such notorious highwaymen as Dick Turpin.

Oddly, the inn is in Cambridgeshire--not a stilton-making county--and even more curiously, it`s fairly certain that the cheese never was made in the town of stilton, from which it takes its name. Local legend has it that the cheese originally came from the great manor house nearby, Quenby Hall, where it was made by the housekeeper, who called it Lady Beaumont`s cheese in honor of her mistress.

At some point the housekeeper began supplying the cheese to her brother-in-law, Cooper Thornhill, the innkeeper of the Bell Inn in Stilton, who sold it to travellers and guests. Its fame spread, and it came to be known as stilton cheese. It has been made by dairy cooperatives since World War I;

before that, stilton was made only in farmhouses.

A demanding cheese, requiring constant care and work, it is said to have prompted one farmer`s wife to lament: ``Stilton, with the exception it makes no noise, is more trouble than babies.`` Stilton is still a lot of trouble to make. Seventeen gallons of milk and up to four months` careful attention go into each 16-pound stilton. The best stilton is made from rich summer milk so that it is ready for the Christmas and New Year`s holidays.

Stilton is the most labor intensive of the English cheeses, many of which are now mass-produced under automated factory conditions. Never pressed, stilton is hand-turned daily so that it drains under its own weight. Further, much like Japan`s prized Kobe beef cattle, every stilton is rubbed by hand, in this case to insure a firm basis for its handsome, golden crust.

White stilton, which is immature stilton, usually is sold about 20 days after manufacture, long before the characteristic blue veins or rough coat can develop. Very mild, this cheese is used primarily as a base for specialty cheeses.

Blue stilton, which is best eaten after being aged three to five months, deepens in flavor as it ripens. In its sixth and seventh weeks each cheese is pierced with stainless steel needles. This allows airborne blue mold to enter the cheese and begin the natural veining process. At nine weeks each cheese is sampled and graded for blueness and taste. Some retailers prefer a milder Stilton; others desire a more pungent cheese.

A fine stilton should be firm and creamy with a color ranging from ivory to pale amber, never chalk white or crumbly. The blue veining should be even, a clear contrast with the ivory of the cheese. A natural product, not every stilton matures properly, thus the constant testing and vigilance at the dairy.

Involved in every step in the creation and development of a stilton to maturity, the human association with the cheese is an intimate one. In fact, each cheese has a pedigree recording every person who has touched it since the day it was begun.

As a result, stilton makers unselfconsciously, and rather touchingly, tend to regard the cheeses as living creatures with their own personalities and quirks.

``The cheeses are all made as individuals and all tested as individuals,`` says John Wiles, chairman of the Stilton Cheese Makers`